


Reassurance

by foxfireflamequeen



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxfireflamequeen/pseuds/foxfireflamequeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin, guilty of secrecy, indulged him as much as he could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reassurance

The alert on his phone was flashing on and off when Dick dug it out of his jeans pocket, indicating that he had an unread message.

Or, as he discovered while carefully folding his used Robin suit into Alfred’s hamper, 37 unread messages. All from Wally.

Alfred didn’t comment on his amused smile as he walked up the stairs to the clock, flicking through his inbox to note the time stamps. The first one had popped in at exactly 3 am. The second came in at 3:45, and the third at 4:15. The time intervals between messages got noticeably shorter after that. Batman and Robin usually finished their patrol by 2 am on weekdays, on account of Dick having school in the morning and Alfred being an extremely strict grandparent butler. It was summer, so patrol was extended an hour, but they were still way late today—the sky was already bright and the air was warming up. Dick was perfectly aware of Wally’s metabolism clock, which woke the redhead up every three hours no matter how tired or drugged up he was, because he had to eat. Dick had a sneaking suspicion that Wally went to bed exactly at 11 just so he could wake up at 2—there could really be no other reason for an 18 year-old to go to bed before midnight—but he had yet to find concrete evidence to support that theory. (His friend apparently changed his sleeping pattern to accommodate his new schedule.) If Dick hadn’t already let him know by then that he was back, Wally would get worried.

Not that he would ever admit it, of course. As demonstrated by the first text.

**_[Hey dude, did u get the new skyrim beta yet?]_ **

Dick lifted an eyebrow at his phone, ignoring Alfred’s pointed look as he sat down at the kitchen table to devour the spread waiting for him. He knew Alfred disapproved of texting at the table, but also that the man would be willing to overlook Dick letting a friend know he hadn’t gotten blown up or massacred on his latest adventure. Even Bruce was aware of Wally’s paranoia by now. Dick could clearly recall the Joker incident years ago which had started their little after-patrol tradition—the one where Wally realized that when Robin was seriously injured, he never found out until the pain had dulled and all visible bandages were removed. Since then, Wally had taken it upon himself to find out when Robin came home every night, ‘discreetly’. A late night meant complications, and usually included injury. Robin, guilty of secrecy, indulged him as much as he could.

Dick’s fingers automatically retrieved his ‘Sent’ folder to read the last text he’d sent the redhead, barely five hours ago: **_[Delivery’s gonna take another couple days, man. I’ll let you know the moment i have it.]_**

He returned to his inbox and turned the screen towards Alfred, mostly to see the older man hide a smile, a little to share his exasperation. Sure. Not worried _at all_.

The second text was just as pointless, but it made Dick frown.

**_[Cant sleep. Still hungry. Theres no food here. Tell alfred to send me foooood.]_ **

This wasn’t the first time Wally had woken up to an empty fridge. It was ridiculous. Wally’s parents _knew_ about his routine midnight cravings, they were raising a _speedster_ , had been for the past five years, but they rarely remembered something as simple as stocking the refrigerator. He briefly entertained the idea of zeta-beaming Alfred’s cooking to Keystone, but Wally had probably gone over to Barry’s anyway, as he always did when things like this happened. They happened a bit too often for Dick’s liking, but Wally didn’t complain, and they’d had one too many tense moments over this for Dick to broach the subject too quickly.

Alfred cleared his throat and Dick returned to his meal, significantly less eager to swallow. Bruce was still down in the cave analyzing the Riddler’s latest appearance patterns, and Alfred paused by Dick’s side to contemplate this new development in the young master’s late night eating habits—chewing—before continuing down the hall, tray in his hands. Everything on that tray would stop steaming before Bruce picked it up.

Wally’s stomach probably rumbled all the way through his mental debate on whether or not to bother Barry at this hour, despite both Barry and Iris having assured him many, many, _many_ times that they were glad to have him whenever. Dick was pretty sure they’d be glad to have him _permanently_.

Wally must have been fed and sated by the time he sent the next one, so that was good.

**_[I taught megan to skype. Arent u back yet?]_ **

**_[Whats taking u so long. I’m bored.]_ **

**_[Dick. I’m bored.]_ **

**_[dick.]_ **

Okay, he’d un-capitalized that one on purpose. Or would that be _de_ -capitalized?

**_[dick. dick. dick. Penis.]_ **

_Seriously?_

It devolved further from there and Dick didn’t even know how, considering the devolution started from a message containing synonyms of his name. Dick gave up on the thirtieth text and hit ‘reply’. He was exhausted and wanted to go to bed and he wasn’t even going to _pretend_ to play along.

**_[I’m home. Unharmed.]_ **

He could imagine Wally dozing on top of his covers, hand loose around his phone, foregoing lying down properly lest he fall completely asleep and miss Dick’s reply. He could practically _see_ his best friend jerk awake at the loud buzz of a received message near his ear.

He crawled under his own comforter and fought off the sleep, waiting for Wally to gather his bearings and text him back. For a speedster, Wally typed awfully slow.

His phone lit up with a soft hum, and Dick reached for it, bone-tired but grinning, and knowing that Alfred was going to be disappointed when he slept through the morning due to another few hours of pointless texting.

 


End file.
